Friday, December 16, 2011

A6 Calender Tutorial

 
 
 
 
Day 5 of Tutorial week and I just had to show how to make these little A6 Calenders. They are my teachers gifts this year. They are cheap to make but look great. Hopefully there will be massively impressed teachers this year. The lighter one is for a female teacher and the darker for a male teacher. The new Urban Stamps from Docrafts are perfect for this project. (link for these below)

Whats Required:
Stamps, Calender, Dye based ink and either a sponge or a Tim Holtz Blender. 2 A6 Cards.



Take one of the A6 Cards and your inks, stamps and sponge/blender.
I have used the flower stamp just below the card and over the edge and then stamped each next one slightly over lapping the last using the same method of keeping the bottom of the stamp slightly below the card.



 Work on a piece of scrap paper so as not to damage your craft mat. Ink up your sponge and place your sponge off the side of the card. Using small circular motions across the paper make your way onto the card to sponge and start coloring it. I find this method helps darken and define the edges of the card but also gets you a much softer look then if you go directly onto the card with the sponge as you can end up getting some hard ink marks. Sponge all around the edges including into where the stems of the flowers are. Leave white space in the center as it just adds a really nice look to the calender. I like to take off as much ink from the sponge as possible on some scrap card and then just gently sponge over the center so I just slight discolor it instead of leaving it stark white.




 Sponge all over the back of the card as well.

Now stamp out the butterfly on card-  twice on White and once on Purple, cut these out.

Once you have stamped and cut out the butterflies turn them over and using a larger stamp (pattern doesn't really matter). You are going to join all these butterflies together and you don't want any white space showing under the wings.

 Take the three butterflies and join them together down the bodies. Before I do this curve the wings upwards leaving the body part flat it makes it a lot easier to sit them into one another and join them together. I actually use a 3D gloss to join them as I find it joins together really solidly and so it lasts for the year the calender will be used.

Now take your second A6 card, this will be your base.

Open the card out and on one side turn back a small tab inwards about 1cm or 1/4 inch in depth, this is your tab.
Close the card again. Taking the side with the folded over tab bend it backwards towards the card spine. See photo.
 Sharpen this center crease you have just made.
 You have just created your stand for the card.
Now to join them together. Before I do this I take a small thin section off the larger side of the stand so that it sits neatly into the decorated A6 card.
Put double sided tape on as shown in the photo below.
This stand is going to sit inside the Decorated A6 card. The small tab is to be joined to the main decorated front panel. Be sure to take your time doing this as you don't want a little white lip showing from the tab at the bottom of the calender.
Now the large panel sits inside the back panel of the decorated card.
 
Now just complete your decoration. Layer up your calender onto different card. Add your butterflies and gems. On the back decorate, I have used another stamp from the same Papermania Botanical Print Urban Stamp Set   The lettering is from the Tatty Teddy Range.

Well I hope you like this project. I am working from the kitchen at the moment as the studio is just too cold to work in and I though you might like to see how I photograph my project. (see below)
Yep, I make my daughter Hannah hold up some white card for the background!!!  I am so technical!!! lol.

Happy crafting everyone.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Cliona
    Some hard work has gone into this - I've enjoyed my nightly visits to the blog - only wish I had more time to play. See you soon
    Happy Christmas
    Annette

    ReplyDelete